PCB chief Selector Muhammad Wasim has revealed that opening batter Shan Masood is close to getting selected for the white-ball squads in the future while he is currently playing in the T20 blast and leading the Derbyshire Falcons.
PCB chief Selector Muhammad Wasim has revealed that opening batter Shan Masood is close to getting selected for the white-ball squads in the future.
The left-handed batter is part of the test squad as the third opener but his form across formats has agitated a debate to include him in all three formats.
He is currently playing in the T20 blast and leading the side Derbyshire Falcons while he was the top run-scorer for them in the county championship with 844 runs before the T20 competition started.
His first season in English cricket has got off to a scintillating start, scoring 844 runs from nine County Championship innings, including three centuries, two of which passed 200.
“Shan Masood isn’t far away from the Pakistan team. He is a part of the red-ball squad as the third opener, and he’s close to the white-ball squads,”
said Wasim [via Cricket Baaz with Waheed Khan].
“Our problem is that we have a top-heavy lineup in white-ball cricket. Our next consideration is perhaps giving him a chance at another position [the white ball] and I’ve been in touch with Shan about that.
Wasim opined Masood could be tried in the middle order slot but there was a lack of evidence behind this idea.
“You want a player to play at his usual number in an ideal situation. However, because of how Shan is performing and how we’re struggling in the middle order, there is a chance that he could fit there in the future. But we lack evidence to support this idea.
“We haven’t seen Shan play that role previously, so can we try this experiment at the international level? Ideally, we wait for him to perform in some domestic tournament or league in the middle order to have some evidence for it.
“I have been in touch with him about this, and he’s on board with the idea. It’s something under consideration,”
he concluded.
Pakistan will be well represented in this year’s tournament.
Shadab Khan, Haris Rauf, Muhammad Rizwan, Naseem Shah, and Zafar Gohar all are participating in the tournament.
However, Shan Masood is not part of the ODI squad that was announced for the upcoming series against the West Indies.